


Understanding

by dollsome



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24394036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: “Would you call me a beautiful monster?” Villanelle asks.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 69
Kudos: 492





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> In the wake of the most recent episode, this conversation popped into my head and would not be silenced!! Spoilers for 3.07.

_"Love is understanding, not transformation. And if you find somebody that doesn't understand you, at whichever point in your life, run. Love them as they are or leave them be."  
_ -Guillermo del Toro

It’s one of those rare in-between moments where they have time alone before the inevitable shit hits the fan and the fan explodes. They’re walking side by side through the night like they do this all the time, like all they’re thinking about is their destination, like this isn’t cosmic dessert for two prisoners who’ve been surviving on bread and water.

“Would you call me a beautiful monster?” Villanelle asks.

Eve snorts.

Villanelle hardens her stare.

“Oh, you’re serious.”

“Yes,” Villanelle says, glowering. “I’m serious.”

“Well, okay then. No, I would not call you a beautiful monster.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not in an early-2000’s emo band.”

Villanelle scoffs and puts her hands in her pockets, lets her eyes wander around like Eve’s point of view is the least interesting thing in the world. Then she asks, her voice carefully aloof, “What would you call me?”

“Confusing,” Eve says.

They keep walking. Villanelle waits. Finally: “That’s it?”

“Annoying.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Exhausting.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Complicated.”

Villanelle perks up. “Oh?”

“Shockingly, whimsically cruel, but not without decency, in your own way. Smart as hell. Funny.”

“Oh my God, thank you. Nobody gets how hilarious I am. I think they are just jealous.”

“Insecure,” Eve carries on, merciless. “You can’t stand the idea of not being the most powerful person in the room. You’re all about control, which is pretty rich, because your self control is iffy at best.”

Villanelle frowns.

“And,” Eve finishes, her voice softening a little, “you’re lonely.”

“What makes you think that?” Villanelle asks it quickly, like she’d lift a weapon at the hint of a threat.

“Nobody gets you. They keep hitting you with bullshit like ‘You’re a beautiful monster.’ Dasha gave me a whole speech about how you’re the perfect killing machine.”

“I am the perfect killing machine.”

“No, you’re a person who happens to have a lax moral code and a real spectacular flair for homicide. She makes it sound like you don’t feel it.”

“I don’t feel it.”

Eve just looks at her.

“I didn’t used to feel it,” Villanelle amends. Muttering, she adds, “Or if I did, I didn’t notice.”

“Well,” Eve says, “you’re noticing now.”

“So you don’t think I am a cleansing fire of chaos?”

“No. But I think whoever told you that sounds like a major dick.”

Villanelle laughs, a little squeak of childlike glee.

Then it goes quiet again. The conversation might as well be over. They walk in silence toward whatever inevitable disaster is waiting for them. Until--

“You’re obsessive.”

“What?” Eve says.

“I want to do you now. No pun intended.”

Eve swallows. “Okay.”

“You’re, like, really obsessive. You fixate on things and forget to bathe. It freaks people out.”

“Wow, this is fun.”

“It’s all right. Your natural musk is pretty decent.”

“Oh,” Eve says in agony, “my God.”

“It feels really good to be chased by you, because I know that you are never going to stop. Everybody else stops, sooner or later. Not you.”

Eve looks over at her.

“You don’t care about what you wear at all, which is depressing but also kind of sexy. I used to want to fix you, but now I think it’s fun to see what you come up with.”

“Shut up.” Eve self-consciously adjusts the giant hood of her jacket, then catches herself doing it and stops.

“You weren’t good at being married, because it is hard for you to give up what you want and focus on somebody else.” As Eve’s lips flutter open to protest, Villanelle adds, “It’s okay. It’s more normal than society wants you to think. Women are people too, Eve. Crack a book sometime.”

Eve doesn’t fight her on it.

“You’re very curious.” Villanelle’s voice turns faraway. “It makes your eyes different, when you want to know something. They get darker and brighter at the same time.”

Eve looks away.

It encourages Villanelle. “You like being scared. If you stood on a cliff, you would think about jumping, and it would turn you on a little bit. You like the thought of being scary, too. Sometimes, you even scare me.”

Eve still doesn’t look at her. Her breathing has quickened in a way that would usually go unnoticed.

“You are not a good person like you want to be,” Villanelle persists.

Eve closes her eyes and stops walking.

Villanelle goes still too.

After a few seconds, she adds, “But you have a good heart. Not in a lame way. But you are loyal to people who don’t deserve it. You care about justice. You wish the world was better than it is.”

This gets Eve to look.

“Does that disappoint you?” she asks, her voice low.

Villanelle considers it. “Not so much anymore.”

They look away from each other a little too late and start walking again.

“Your diet is completely crap. I worry about your insides.”

Eve lets out a little huff of a laugh.

“And you have great hair, of course. I forgive you for leaving that out when you were talking about me. That’s another thing I am. Very forgiving.”

“Ha!”

“I am!”

“If you say so. I’m not.”

“But you forgive me,” Villanelle tests, “for killing you.”

Eve looks straight ahead. “I don’t know.”

“I won’t do it again.”

“We’ll see.”

“See, this is what I meant. You like to be scared.”

“And I meant what I said before you shot me. I’m not scared of you anymore.”

“If you don’t want me to scare you, then why did you look for me? Why are you here?”

“Because you’re you,” Eve says shortly, “and I’m me. Where the fuck else do we belong?”

Villanelle stares at her for a moment, rapt.

“That was really touching,” she says then, placing a sentimental hand to her heart. “Like something from Winnie-the-Pooh.”

“Yeah, well,” says Eve, “you know me and my good heart.”

“I do,” Villanelle agrees, pleased. “And you know me.”

“The biggest asshole I’ve ever met in my life.”

“But not a monster,” Villanelle checks, just to be sure.

“No,” says Eve, “not a monster.”


End file.
